[VIDEO] The Genovation GXE Electric Corvette Shatters the EV Track Record at Thunderhill West

We kept waiting for the tumbleweeds to come blowing across the screen and a Texan in a cowboy hat to say “Howdy, Pardner,” while watching the latest video of this electrified C7 Corvette supercar.

The only sounds you hear on the video are the wind whistling, the whining of the electric motor, and the tires squealing periodically as the Genovation GXE sets an unofficial course record at Thunderhill Raceway West.

It’s a surreal feeling to watch this awesome 800-plus horsepower electric Corvette silently slaying the track, but we’re wondering how you other enthusiasts out there feel about the lack of a rumbling exhaust providing a sweet accompaniment to the performance.

The Genovation GXE, of course, reached a whopping 211.8 mph earlier this year on the Kennedy Space Center’s shuttle runway to become the fastest street-legal electric supercar.

Recently, racer Randy Pobst climbed behind the wheel for two days of testing to help Genovation fine-tune the car’s huge rear wing with active aero and in the process unofficially broke the course EV record by 13 seconds at Thunderhill West. He also bested the C7 Corvette’s time to rank third overall on the track’s unofficial list of all competitors.

In another video also posted on autoblog.com, Pobst tells us he has just been introduced to the Genovation GXE and he’s been “blown away” by the technology and what electricity can do.

“My job here is to get a baseline on how the Genovation GXE drives and do what I can to make it better,” Pobst says, “because I don’t care what you got, it can always be better.”

Working on a race car, you have to be a pessimist, according to Pobst. “You look at the car and you go, it’s not what’s the best thing because that’s already good, it’s what’s the worst thing because that’s where we’re going to get more speed. That’s something that my best race teams always did – push for better, push for better, because if you’re not getting better, guess what? You’re going backwards. You’re getting worse because all the other good guys, they’re doing the same thing.”

Pobst is impressed with the smoothness and strength of the torque, saying the Genovation is “just a tsunami down the straights.”

He says the adjustments to the suspension were “successful” in the front of the car, saying it’s better behaved. “We had enough power that we were able to generate wheel spin coming off the slow hairpin,” Pobst continues.

The car “is really nice to drive,” saying that he could be aggressive and had lots of confidence, good stability under braking, and very compliant suspension.

“So overall,” Pobst concludes, “a ton of progress” for the first day of testing.

After charging the batteries up, he waits till the cool morning weather the next day to “give it all she’s got and try for the best possible lap time.”

Pobst describes the Genovation as a “combination of the supercar of the past and the technology of the future – and you stir them together [and] get the best of both worlds.”

With his time on the track finally at an end, he says “that’s the hardest I pushed the car yet. It was rocking, it was rocking.”

“The time,” a smiling Pobst says, “is looking really great. I think, uh, I think we went fast, like faster than almost anything on the fastest lap website, which is fantastic for an electric car.”

As he rolled back more slowly through the hills of the raceway in northern California, Pobst followed his tracks around the course and summed up his experiences.

“They call this thing a supercar for a reason,” he says. “The power is smooth, quiet, and on a chassis with DSC sport shocks that have the capability of using that power and putting it to the ground.”

Driving the GXE is “a really different experience,” according to Pobst.

“I’m thrilled with the car,” he says. “It’s a real supercar. We can rip through the corners out here and then into that torque; that electric torque is instant. There’s no waiting; off you go.”

Pobst says he’s looking forward to even more time behind the wheel as the car continues to develop.

“Maybe we’ll get another chance” to drive it, he says. “I see a lot of potential – fast as can be and more to come.”

Source:
Autoblog.com

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